Posted on 08/11/2007 10:46:04 AM PDT by posterchild
His peers buy yachts, vintage wine and high-end golf gear for fun. But for software executive Jon Ramsey, there's nothing like the deep rumble of a $2,700 Powermatic table saw.
"It sounds like a jet airplane taking off," he says. The Powermatic is the centerpiece of Mr. Ramsey's basement workshop, where he turns raw lumber into finely crafted tables and dressers for his home. It's noisy, sweaty work -- and that's just fine. For him and many other senior executives like him, old-fashioned woodworking is the perfect antidote to the endless blizzards of memos, meetings and strategy shifts that define life at the top.
Affluent amateur carpenters have been around for decades, but the current boom is being fueled by a belief that escaping to the world of chisels, saws and glue can whisk away the stresses of modern corporate life. Traffic is growing at Web sites that cater to wealthy hobbyists such as sawmillcreek.org, where registered users have more than doubled in the past year to 20,000. The leading hobbyists' magazine, Fine Woodworking, has a circulation of 270,000 copies, up 10% in the last decade, and 80% of the readers are executives, lawyers or other types of professionals.
Business for high-end hardware retailers is growing, too. Woodcraft Supply LLC, which started in Boston, now boasts 83 stores nationwide, up 20% in the past two years.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
bttt
Then again, Saturday afternoon is probably a bad time to post such an article. Most of those interested are probably woodworking like I’ve been for the past half hour:)
Wrong, sawdust breath. Taking a little break after cleaning up some dovetails - wish I could do them better.
Power tools? Real men do it with hand tools, preferably old hand tools.
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